Buyer coalition formation with bundle of items by ant colony optimization

Abstract

In electronic marketplaces, there are several buyer coalition schemes with the aim of obtaining the best discount and the total group's utility for buying a large volume of products. However, there are a few schemes focusing on a group buying with bundles of items. This paper presents an approach called GroupBuyACO for forming buyer coalition with bundle of items via the ant colony optimization (ACO). The concentration of the proposed algorithm is to find the best formation of the heterogeneous preference of buyers for earning the best discount from venders. The buyer coalition is formed concerning the bundles of items, item price, and the buyer reservations. The simulation of the proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared with the GAGroupBuyer scheme by Sukstrienwong (Buyer formation with bundle of items in e-marketplaces by genetic algorithm. Lecture note in engineering and computer science: proceedings of the international multiconference of engineers and computer scientists 2010, IMECS 2010, 17-19 March 2010, Hong Kong, pp 158-162). Experimental Results indicate that the algorithm can improve the total discount of any coalitions. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.